John Ashbery Quotes

61 Sourced Quotes

So I cradle this average violin that knows
Only forgotten showtunes, but argues
The possibility of free declamation anchored
To a dull refrain....

John Ashbery
These two guys in the front yard—
Are they here to help?

John Ashbery
It didn't pay very much, but it enabled me to get other jobs doing art criticism, which I didn't want to do very much, but as so often when you exhibit reluctance to do something, people think you must be very good at it. If I had set out to be an art critic, I might never have succeeded.

John Ashbery
In the evening
Everything has a schedule, if you can find out what it is.

John Ashbery
To the poet as a basement quilt, but perhaps
To some reader a latticework of regrets...

John Ashbery
Well, there are certain stock words that I have found myself using a great deal. When I become aware of them, it is an alarm signal meaning I am falling back on something that has served in the past—it is a sign of not thinking at the present moment, not that there is anything intrinsically bad about certain words or phrases.

John Ashbery
Death is a new office building filled with modern furniture,
A wise thing, but which has no purpose for us.

John Ashbery
Life is beautiful. He who reads that
As in the window of some distant, speeding train
Knows what he wants, and what will befall.

John Ashbery
In the beginning there are those who don't quite fit in
But are somehow okay. And then some morning
There are places that suddenly seem wonderful:
Weather and water seem wonderful,
And the peaceful night sky that arrives
In time to protect us, like a sword
Cutting the blue cloak of a prince.

John Ashbery
Most reckless things are beautiful in some way, and recklessness is what makes experimental art beautiful, just as religions are beautiful because of the strong possibilities that they are founded on nothing.

John Ashbery
You stupefied me. We waxed,
Carnivores, late and alight
In the beaded winter. All was ominous, luminous.

John Ashbery
For this is action, this not being sure, this careless Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow, Making ready to forget, and always coming back To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

John Ashbery
The evening light was like honey in the trees When you left me and walked to the end of the street Where the sunset abruptly ended. The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself To the fragile forget-me-not flower. You climbed aboard. Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones, Dreams I had, including suicide, Puff out the hot-air balloon now. It is bursting, it is about to burst

John Ashbery
How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind windblown fog and sand Filtered and influenced by it, until no part Remains that is surely you.

John Ashbery
And so we turn the page over. To think of starting. This is all there is.

John Ashbery
But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,
Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual
Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,
Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.

John Ashbery
When I originally started writing, I expected that probably very few people would read my poetry because in those days people didn't read poetry much anyway.

John Ashbery
Life is not at all what you might think it to be
A simple tale where each thing has its history
It's much more than its scuffle and anything goes
Both evil and good, subject to the same laws.

John Ashbery
The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes

John Ashbery
The ellipse is as aimless as that,
Stretching invisibly into the future so as to reappear
In our present. Its flexing is its account,
Return to the point of no return.

John Ashbery
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—

John Ashbery
All beauty, resonance, integrity,
Exist by deprivation or logic
Of strange position.

John Ashbery
The sun fades like the spreading
Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight
Might be read as a warning to those desperate
For easy solutions.

John Ashbery
Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you, At incredible speed, traveling day and night, Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes. But will he know where to find you, Recognize you when he sees you, Give you the thing he has for you?

John Ashbery
The soul establishes itself. But how far can it swim out through the eyes And still return safely to its nest?

John Ashbery
Much that is beautiful must be discarded So that we may resemble a taller Impression of ourselves.

John Ashbery
The first year was like icing. Then the cake started to show through …

John Ashbery
Did I say that? One says so many things, and the problem is they all get written down.

John Ashbery
This whole moment is the groin
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us in his sleep.

John Ashbery
Then let yourself love all that you take delight in
Accept yourself whole, accept the heritage
That shaped you and is passed on from age to age
Down to your entity. Remain mysterious;
Rather than be pure, accept yourself as numerous.

John Ashbery